The concept of an afterlife is inhumane and immoral. Belief in the continuation of your "soul" or consciousness after death is wishful thinking. Belief in an afterlife devalues the one life that actually exists: this one.

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Pope Benedict XVI said Monday that pharmacists have a right to use conscientious objection to avoid dispensing emergency contraception or euthanasia drugs and told them they should also inform patients of the ethical implications of using such drugs.

Benedict told a gathering of Catholic pharmacists that conscientious objection was a right that must be recognized by the pharmaceutical profession.

The Pope forgot to add that if you object to filling out prescriptions of any kind, then you shouldn't be a fucking pharmacist!

And he also forgot to add that while objection to contraception is a right that must be recognized by the pharmaceutical profession, getting fired for not doing your fucking job is also a right that must be recognized by the employees that refuse to fill said prescriptions!

Oh man does this piss me off, not only morally, but business-wise. I feel like I can't even use enough bold text in here to convey how outraged I am. If I got a problem defending criminals, then I shouldn't be a defense attorney. If I don't like condoms, then I shouldn't work for Trojan Condom Company. And if I got a problem filling up birth control prescriptions, then I shouldn't work in a pharmacy! How many different ways can I phrase it so that it will make sense to these retarded motherfuckers?

Hey, I'm an atheist. So I don't go around trying to get a job at your church, do I? I'll keep my atheist ass off your church employee roster, and you can keep your superstitious ass out of my pharmaceutical labor pool!

One final note: I know that pharmacies have to have provisions to get an alternate to fill the order if one clerk refuses, but if some asshole refuses to give a girl her Plan B pill, and she gets pregnant as a result, then that piece of shit should be financially liable for child support! It's only fair.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

My good friend Olly from Without Hyphens has meme-tagged me. This particular meme-tag is of Olly's own creation, and it's a pretty good one too! Check it out:

I got to thinking recently about the idea that all of us, as humans, have principles we live by daily. These aren’t your over-arching beliefs necessarily, but rather the things that you do daily as a part of those beliefs. So, for example, it’s not that I’m an anarchist, but things I do daily in line with that. I’ve kept it to 5 on my own, but there’s no hard rules on this meme; name as few or as many as you’d like! Likewise, no limits on how few or how many (if any) people you tag… do whatever is comfortable!

I think I'll make a slightly shorter list of three daily habits, and list them in order of importance. While my list is a bit more abstract than Olly's I do feel that they meet the qualifications of his meme-tag in that they are daily life practices that are derived from actual principles that I hold. I have found much satisfaction, success, understanding, and happiness by applying these three practices to my life, and I think that everyone else can benefit from them as well. Here we go!

1) Apply universality to all social interactions. When I am interacting with other people I check the fairness or rightness of the situation in part by turning the tables, or putting the involved parties in each other's shoes. I ask myself how I would feel about the situation if the roles were reversed. This helps me understand the other person's perspective, the equality of the interaction, and helps me to determine what corrective action to apply if needed.

2) Regularly question and test your own beliefs. The merit of a belief is not found in how fiercely one believes it, but in how well it stands up to scrutiny. Similarly, the confidence and security one has in their belief is found not in how passionately they defend it, but in how willing they are to let it stand on its own merit.

3) Win by converting your opponent, not attacking him. While this principle is not my most important one, it is certainly my favorite. Kill 'em with kindness. Hide your sword with a smile. You attract more flies with honey than with vinegar. Build bridges, not walls. It can be stated many different ways, but the idea is the same. When facing an opponent, the strategy is to paint both of you as being on the same side, while painting his position or ideology as actually being against the both of you. Framing the situation as you and your opponent vs. the ideology/argument in question, and not simply as you vs. your opponent, paves the way for your opponent's conversion.

Now comes the part where I spread the meme by tagging five other people. After much consideration, I have decided to tag the following bloggers:

Monday, October 15, 2007

I love irony, especially when the one being ironic is doing it on accident. I have an old post (over two years old!) that a friend of mine once wrote and requested that I post on my blog. I almost forgot about the post entirely, but just today a guy named Atheist Turned Christian submitted a comment on it.

His comment was well meaning, but with all due respect, the guy has some seriously backwards ideas in his head. I decided to respond to him by making a blog post rather than replying in the comments. Other atheist readers should feel free to respond to it to in the comments section of this post. But be nice and extend to him the same level of respect the he has given. His words are in italics and indented, and my words are regular format:

AtheistTurnedChristian said...

For 19 years I was an Atheist. Now I'm Christian. You can call me crazy, but I was just like you, the way I saw things was just like you.

Welcome to my blog, Atheist Turned Christian!

Actually, we are more like polar opposites than just like each other. You see, I was a Christian for 17 years, but now I'm an atheist. You can call me crazy, but I did the exact opposite flip that you did. I guess I can at least concede though that we share the similarity of flipping from one extreme worldview to the other.

Rather than trying so hard to debunk everything, why don't you just try your best to find the truth?

Actually, I already did that years ago, back when I was a Christian. It was my studying to learn more about the "truth" of my Christian faith that eventually backfired and started my slow but mind-blowing journey to atheism.

You write an essay with your mind set on being Anti-Christian.

Well of course I do. When I was a Christian I was passionate about spreading the faith, and now that I'm an atheist I am passionate about spreading the rationality. My passion for seeking the truth hasn't ever changed, only my worldview has changed.

You think Christians and religious people are crazy, but they were all once atheists or at the very least agnostics.

Just to set the record straight, I do not believe at all that Christians and religious people are crazy simply because of their faith. It is the faith itself that is crazy. To use a variation of a popular saying, "Crazy people will do crazy things, and normal people will do normal things. But for normal people to do crazy things, that takes religion."

They see something you don't see, but they can at least say they've been where you are. Can you say you've been where they are? Can you say you were once religious? If not, you're speaking with half the experience of those who are religious. Especially those who are 'born-again' and not born into a religion.

If they were born into a religion then they weren't really consciously atheistic, were they? And yes, I can say that I've been where the Christians were. I used to think I felt God and heard Jesus talk to me when I prayed. I used to attend Sunday service regularly. I was also a member of the church's youth group, and went on various LOG (Love Of God) retreats. I can go on... but I think that should suffice. And no offense, Atheist Turned Christian, but it is not very nice to assume that an atheist has never been a theist or has never experienced faith. Most atheists, especially the vocal and active atheists like me, had their starts in religion, and only became atheists after many painful months, and even years, of self-reflection and thought and prayer. I for one did everything I could do to stop the erosion of my faith, but I couldn't stop learning about the issues and I couldn't stop honestly looking at the arguments. I couldn't lie to myself or force myself to continue believing what had eventually shown itself to be an obvious, blatant, and horrible lie: faith.

If you look at history, man's moral degradation worsens as religion is pushed further and further away. How's that good?

You are most definitely incorrect. Please show some supporting evidence for this assertion. In the meantime, I will provide some links that show that the less religious a society is, the better off they are. Enjoy these:

Those are good links for starters, but I got lots more where that came from. I can't wait to see what you present as evidence to the contrary.

The billions of people on earth who believe in a God, how can you DEFINITIVELY say you are right? Everyone is just on one big acid trip and you're right?

That is nothing but a plain old argument from popularity. And I do not claim to DEFINITELY be right. I'm only claiming that the evidence and logic is vastly in favor of atheism being true, and God being imaginary. I am the first to admit the possibility of being wrong, but I am more than comfortable betting my chips on atheism.

So why don't you share with me the story of how you went from atheist to Christian? Atheists that convert to Christianity are seemingly rare in the blogosphere, and I'd love to hear how it happened to you.

The decedent is clothed in a diving wet suit, a face mask which has a single vent for breathing, a rubberized head mask having an opening for the mouth and eyes, a second rubberized suit with suspenders, rubberized make underwear, hands and feet have diving gloves and slippers. There are numerous straps and cords restraining the decedent. There is a leather belt about the midriff. There is a series of ligatures extending from the hands to the feet. The hands are bound behind the back. The feet are tied to the hands. There are nylon ligatures holding these in place with lather straps about the wrists and ankles. There are plastic cords also tied about the hands and feet with a single plastic cord extending up to the head and surrounding the lower neck. There is a dildo in the anus covered with a condom.

No wonder Falwell liked the guy. What a bunch of motherfucking perverts!

Maybe this moron should have been more honest to himself and to those close to him, and he might have been able to express these freaky fetishes more safely, and maybe he would still be alive today.

But no, instead he’s gotta spend his life in self-hate, shoving dildos up his rubber-wrapped ass, while hiding his fetish from the world. And as a result, he’s dead.

No afterlife for you, buddy. And even if there was, I doubt that the residents of heaven are allowed to penetrate their own anuses with dildos. Which, by definition, would mean that heaven would not even be heaven for you at all!

I think that the decent thing to do, at the least, is allow this guy to be buried with his dildo at his side. Or inside.

Monday, October 08, 2007

Heathens, take note! This is what happens to a society when it abandons God:

Depending on the definition of atheism, Norway thus has between 26 percent and 71 percent atheists. The Norwegian Humanist Association is the world's largest humanist association per capita.

And what has secularism done to Norway? The Global Peace Index rates Norway the most peaceful country in the world. The Human Development Index, a comparative measure of life expectancy, literacy, education and standard of living, has ranked Norway No. 1 every year for the last five years.

Norway has the second highest GDP per capita in the world, an unemployment rate below 2 percent, and average hourly wages among the world's highest.